Blackfoot Forest somewhere inside, I hope you still see me just the way I was before I walked away

She stared, for his name wouldn't leave her, and she feared if she turned, his face would disappear to the shadows of the dawn. He wasn't real - couldn't be - because finding Desna had been impossibile enough. No, for all the times she'd dreamt of finding him, that was what this was - a dream. He hadn't changed from what she remembered - only that he seemed somehow smaller now - or maybe she had simply grown. He held her with a bright and copper stare, too much like her own, and when he spoke, his voice rang with a softer edge she dimly remembered, a familiar note that charged every inch of her spine.

She had to get out of here. She needed to run, to bar herself behind the walls of her youth, the ones she'd constructed and so carefully preserved - the ones that could still protect her. She needed to go - but she found herself speaking, a simple and quiet exhale. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. "Nanook." And the polar girl matched the flames of his eyes.